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My Music Skips A Beat

by Scott Kurtz

Part One

Your presence makes the time pass
Quickly. And I am left grasping
For it through the haze of, "I should go";
Handsful of nothing
And your kisses (like a worn-in melody)
Roll off my tongue (I know every note)
Your words
Are the words of a deep breath
And my music skips a beat
When I see you, etched,
On the darkness of closed eyes.


Part Two

When you're gone, I sing your song
And wonder where I got it from
You have a melody I've heard before.
It patches some of the holes in me
(however temporarily)
when I bend to pick the notes up off the floor.

Your smiles are perfect cadences
At the finishes of sentences
(without them everything is incomplete)
The pulse of your neck and chest
Outstretched, you meet my lips, pressed.
I used to skip a beat.

But now the beat is part of me
And I'm hearing it in everything;
The breath of sleep - and angel's wings.